by Alison Bond
Serena was silent. Lynsey bit down on her lip. This wasn’t going to work. Why would Serena stick with her when she’d just spent a large part of the drive telling Serena how famous she was? Plan A was nosediving and she had yet to magic up a plan B. Positivity could be a bitch that way sometimes. ‘What do you think?’ she prompted.
‘You lost your job?’ said Serena. ‘Because of me?’
‘No, it was my fault. I should have told him earlier.’
‘But you wanted to! I made you keep it a secret. I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s okay, really. I could have insisted and I didn’t.’
‘It’s my fault.’ Serena looked mortified and stared down at the Formica table, shredding a napkin with her perfectly manicured fingers.
‘You weren’t to know it would turn out this way.’ Lynsey could see that Serena felt bad but couldn’t resist one last push. ‘So what do you think?’
‘What about?’
‘Me as your agent. Me and you. Together.’
Serena glanced up. ‘You’d be willing to do that? Even after all this?’
‘You don’t get it, do you? I don’t care how old you are. Youth is always a bonus anyway. You’re a great actress, you’re going to be front-page news. You’re famous.’
‘You think? How weird.’
Lynsey was trying to be patient and tolerant and understanding but it had been a very long day. ‘Serena, you’re killing me. Am I still your agent?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Yes, please.’
On the day that Junket was published with Serena on the cover she appeared on three daytime television programmes and later had an enthusiastically received debut on the Tonight Show where she made Jay Leno blush.
In the coming weeks a record number of runaways would be reported. Parents across the country would blame Serena Simon for setting a bad example, while their teenage sons plastered Serena’s picture on their bedroom walls and their daughters highlighted their hair to try and emulate Serena’s style.
In the casting office at Justice a senior producer placed a call to Max Parker.
‘This Serena Simon,’ he said. ‘We should meet her. Who’s she with?’
‘Some half-assed operation out of Venice,’ said Max. ‘Sheridan has their number.’
Davey Black called Lynsey Dixon. Somehow or other, Lynsey seemed to have become Melanie’s part-time personal assistant, an arrangement that suited them both and that Melanie formalized by offering her a nominal monthly wage. Lynsey was grateful.
‘Hey, Lynsey,’ said Davey. ‘I need to get in touch with Melanie. Max said you might know where to reach her. He also said you need to give back your cellphone.’
‘She’s on her way to London,’ said Lynsey. ‘She’s staying with her sister. I’ll get the number, hang on.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Davey. ‘When’s she coming back?’
‘Next week.’
‘Which flight?’
Lynsey gave him Melanie’s flight details. ‘Is everything okay?’ she said.
‘Yeah, it’s fine. Myanmar is getting a real noise going on the circuit. The SAG awards and Chicago look certain to give it a nod or two and you know what that means.’
‘No, tell me.’
‘The little golden guy.’
‘What?’
‘His name is Oscar. And I’d sure love to take him home.’
25
In London, England, Douglas Mullraine was doing his best to defend himself against his wife’s wrath. The British tabloids had picked up on Riley’s story in Junket. The Sun were running it as their front page under the headline ‘Theatre King’s Secret Teenage Floozy’. It was a slow news day. Douglas quite liked the ‘Theatre King.’ but he wasn’t so sure about the floozy. Amanda was devastated.
‘How dare you!’ she screamed, looking for something in the kitchen cupboards and slamming each door with more fury than the last. ‘God knows I’ve turned a blind eye in the past but this is different. You’re in the bloody newspapers, Douglas. How am I supposed to face people? Answer me that.’
‘I’ve told you before,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to it. Look, she even denies it herself.’ He turned to the relevant page in the newspaper where, after three pages of an inflammatory story, they finally printed a quote from Serena denying any romance.
‘People don’t read the words, Douglas! They just look at the pictures.’ Amanda stabbed her finger down onto the page. ‘They look at this.’ The picture the Sun had chosen to accompany the article was Douglas helping Serena into the back of a car. Serena’s skirt was hitched up, exposing several inches of tanned thigh, and she was smiling up at Douglas. His hand was resting on her shoulder and he was laughing at something. It was an intimate picture and would obviously indicate a very close friendship. There was another picture of Douglas (in which he thought he looked rather portly) and a photo of Serena lifted from the cover of Junket. It was this final picture of Serena that upset Amanda most of all. The girl was gorgeous. Amanda couldn’t remember ever seeing such a face. Amanda spent a small fortune on making the best of what God had given her, but there was no beauty treatment in the world which would enable her to compete with that.
‘You’ve been seeing her for months?’ she said.
‘I told you, I’m not seeing her.’
‘Well, you’ve known her then?’
‘I suppose,’ said Douglas.
‘She’s fourteen,’ shrieked Amanda.
‘Almost fifteen,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter, Douglas! The police will be here in a minute to arrest you for – what’s it called? Statutory rape. Oh my God, baby…’ She forced out the words. ‘Are you… are you sick?’
‘Amanda! God, no! Look, I have never had sex with the girl. I will never have sex with the girl.’ How true, thought Douglas; how true. ‘I’m just helping her out, that’s all. Honestly, Amanda, what would a kid like that see in me?’
‘You have a point there.’
She sat down at the kitchen table. Rage was exhausting and, having caught a glance of herself in the mirror, she realized rage cast the face in a most unflattering light. She pressed her fingers down across her eyebrows to relax her frown lines.
The doorbell rang, as it had been doing all day, and she frowned again. ‘And what do we do about them?’ she said. At the end of the driveway around a dozen paparazzi had been camped since midnight the night before. It was starting to get dark but they showed no signs of leaving. Amanda had put on a full face of make-up to take the children over to a friend’s for the day. The cameras had popped enthusiastically when she left the driveway but she was confident that they couldn’t see much of anything through the tinted windows of her new Jeep. Now it looked as if the children would have to stay the night unless she wanted to face the cameras again.
‘I don’t know about you,’ said Douglas, ‘but I could do with a drink.’
He poured himself an inch of scotch and took a restorative mouthful. ‘This is all nonsense, you know that. You’re the only one for me, Dinky, I love you.’ He used her pet name, a sure winner when he was down on his luck.
Predictably, Amanda softened. She allowed Douglas to put his arms around her. She needed him to deny everything and tell her that he loved her. Serena had a way of making women insecure.
‘She’s so beautiful,’ said Amanda mournfully, looking at the picture one more time.
‘Not as beautiful as you,’ said Douglas, on familiar ground.
‘Her figure is amazing,’ said Amanda.
‘Pah! Skin and bones, not a patch on you.’
‘She’s so young,’ said Amanda.
‘So what?’ said Douglas, feeling that he might be on the home straight. ‘Why would I want a kid like that when I’ve got a woman like you to love?’
‘You do love me, don’t you?’ said Amanda, snuggling into his familiar wide chest. She was tired of arguing, they both knew that she would eventually forgive him. She generously decided to start forgi
ving him right now. Tour me one of those, will you?’
Douglas fixed his wife a drink and allowed himself to relax. It looked like the worst of the storm had passed. He knew that from time to time Amanda would drag this incident out again, adding it to the arsenal of his indiscretions that she used as weapons when they fought. She had an exceedingly good memory for such things. He looked discreedy over her shoulder at the newspaper as they cuddled. Serena looked fantastic; this would do wonders for his reputation at the club.
The doorbell rang again.
‘Just fuck off!’ shouted Douglas.
‘Charming!’ came the reply.
‘Oh, crikey,’ said Amanda. ‘Melanie! I forgot she was coming.’
‘Will somebody please let me in?’ shouted Melanie through the letter box against the backing vocals of a screaming baby. ‘Please?’
Amanda ran to the door and dragged them both inside. Melanie wore her journey badly, with wild hair, dark circles under her eyes and a big stain on the shoulder of her shirt. Joseph was in full throttle. His face was purple with violent screams that rocked his little body. How could something so tiny make so much noise?
‘What’s wrong with him?’ said Amanda.
‘I don’t know,’ said Melanie. ‘He’s been like this since we landed and it’s driving me insane.’ She pulled him out of his pram and tried to soothe him.
There was a momentary lull while Joseph gathered some breath for another attack. ‘What’s going on outside?’
‘Have you seen the papers?’
Melanie shook her head. ‘We came straight from the airport.’
‘Douglas is on the front page of the Sun.’
‘What’s he been up to?’
‘Nothing, he says,’ said Amanda. ‘And I believe him,’ she added when she saw Melanie’s doubtful look. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Come in, have a drink, tell me what’s been happening with you. How’s that gorgeous Fabien?’
Melanie let the question go unanswered as Amanda led her into the kitchen. Douglas looked up with a rueful smile. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘What have you been doing?’ said Melanie.
‘Don’t you start,’ said Douglas as Joseph let rip with another wail of renewed intensity. Douglas sank back into his drink. He thought that his absolution might have been a bit too easy. He made a few calls and planned his escape for the evening ahead.
Eventually Joseph went to sleep and Melanie almost wept with gratitude. Amanda, childless at least for tonight, was relaxing downstairs, blissfully unaware of the battle of wills going on above her in the spare room. Melanie felt inadequate. Did all new mothers find mothering this hard? She’d been expecting a certain level of difficulty but not this endless exhaustion. You had to watch them all the time. It was a full-scale production to simply get the child to sleep or eat or stop crying. He was three months old, for pity’s sake, she was a grown woman, surely she could expect to win the occasional argument?
The sudden absence of Joseph’s screams made the house a very different place. Like hell had frozen over and was calm. Melanie tiptoed downstairs.
‘What an adorable child,’ said Amanda, with a straight face.
Melanie smiled. Amanda forced a glass of something clear into her hand and laughed. ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘And tell me how you are.’
Melanie knew that she wouldn’t tell the truth. She would tell Amanda exactly the same thing as she told anyone else who asked. She was fine, great, a bit tired, but you know, happy. The truth was that she was constantly miserable, thoroughly drained and terrified because she didn’t love this thing, this baby, and she knew that she was supposed to.
The flight from Los Angeles had been one of the worst experiences in her life. It was the first time she had been alone with the baby without Fabien or the maternity nurse he insisted on hiring, or his jewel of a housekeeper. She had never realized quite how demanding this whole baby thing was. She had to do everything. From the moment her pre-arranged car delivered them outside the terminal she had struggled with the simplest tasks. She thought things might improve when she boarded the aeroplane. There would probably be a friendly air stewardess who would take care of Joseph, rather like a free childminder, while she organized them into their seats. There would be someone on hand to explain the perilous-looking skycot and to hold Joseph while she went to the bathroom. She would be given preferential treatment. She was a star, and what’s more, she was a star with a baby.
Instead she’d endured the indifference of the cabin staff and the blatant hostility of her fellow travellers. Joseph only had to whimper and all around her passengers would tut and turn away, when he cried they would sigh in disgust as if he’d thrown up, and when he did throw up the man in the next seat asked to be moved. As they came in to land Joseph opened up his lungs and really went for it. People raced off the plane to get away from them, shooting dirty looks Melanie’s way. And Melanie felt like the worst mother in the world.
‘Just shut up,’ she had hissed at him. But he’d ignored her as usual.
They didn’t have a bond. Melanie had waited for the moment when she would be consumed with love but it never came. For the first couple of months Melanie had been optimistic. As she had discovered, childbirth was a very traumatic experience and people told her that it was natural to feel a certain antipathy towards baby in the early days. It would pass they said. It didn’t. Wait until you breastfeed, they said. Melanie had given up trying after six weeks. It was too painful. She would wave her outsize nipple in the direction of his mouth whenever he stopped screaming long enough to let her, but he never did anything more than suck hard enough to make her cry out and then he’d burst into tears at the brief spurt of milk. Like he was surprised. These days Joseph drank formula and Melanie pumped. Her failure as a mother was a constant anxiety.
‘I’m fine,’ she said to Amanda. ‘Great, a bit tired, but you know, happy.’
Amanda looked satisfied with this answer. Come to think of it, hadn’t the sisters had similar conversations before, only with the roles reversed? Melanie had never been too impressed with Amanda’s maternal skills, an attitude she now fiercely regretted. It was just that she’d always thought Amanda made too much fuss over what looked like such a simple, natural thing. It occurred to her that Amanda might be the perfect person to confide in.
‘I don’t think I’m very good at it,’ she said. ‘Motherhood.’
‘Me neither, darling. I’m frightful. If either of my two turns out remotely stable I’ll be very surprised.’
‘But doesn’t that worry you?’
‘Not really. Douglas comes from a terribly loving family and he’s just spoilt. I think you’re damned either way. Eventually they’re all going to hit thirteen and hate your guts no matter what you do. And by that point your influence is over and done with. Childcare, that’s the key. Good parenting these days is about getting the best help.’
Melanie looked around as if expecting the parent-police to come and take Amanda away. ‘To be honest,’ Melanie said, and was about to be exactly that but the baby monitor on her lap chose that moment to burst into life. The light display across the front skipped past green and orange to full-on, bloodcurdling red.
Melanie jumped up and the monitor fell to the thickly carpeted floor as she ran upstairs to the screaming baby.
Amanda chuckled and felt worldly-wise. It was unusual for her to have more experience than Melanie, yet here she was, a seasoned mother of two eavesdropping on the panicked whispers of a nervous first-time mum. Amanda felt something like an earth mother, a woman of experience. Mature. She couldn’t quite hear what Melanie was saying and turned up the volume on the baby monitor. Joseph was still crying, and Amanda felt a satisfying rush of superiority. For once here was something that Melanie couldn’t control. Then, in a brief lull, she heard the desperate tones of her sister.
‘Please,’ said Melanie. ‘Please. Please. I don’t know what you want. Just stop. Stop it!’ And then Melanie started to cry. ‘Pl
ease,’ she said again through her sobs. ‘I can’t bear it.’
Amanda found Melanie on her knees, holding Joseph to her chest and rocking him violently back and forth. She looked up blindly when Amanda entered.
‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
Amanda took the baby away from her and Melanie didn’t even seem to notice. She kept rocking back and forth while she cried. Amanda looked from nephew to sister and decided that, of the two, Joseph would be easier to deal with.
She took him downstairs into the kitchen and clucked and soothed him, talking to him all the while as she took his bottle from the fridge and gave it a quick whirl in the microwave. Soon, Joseph went quiet in her arms and Amanda looked down on his sweet little face, transformed from devilchild to angel with a little warm milk. ‘I’m your auntie Amanda,’ she said. Any problems, you come to me.’
Upstairs, Melanie had stopped crying but was still sitting on the floor. She felt wretched.
‘I think he was hungry,’ said Amanda.
‘But that’s impossible, I fed him, I just fed him. I did.’
‘Well, whatever. It seemed to do the trick.’ She lay the baby back down and then turned her attention to Melanie. ‘Now, what are we going to do about you?’
It was all too much for her. It hurt to admit that, but it was true. She just wasn’t cut out to be a career mother. Especially when that career involved learning continually changing lines, getting back down to a size ten three months after childbirth and exposing yourself to judgement on a weekly primetime basis. She finally had the career she had always craved but life had never been so difficult. Melanie loved her job but being good at it took the sort of commitment that she couldn’t offer any more. The maternity nurse wouldn’t be there when she got back. It would just be her, the housekeeper and the kid. Lately she had been thinking that moving out of Fabien’s house would solve some of her problems, make her feel independent, untwine his bad habits from their lives, but the thought of being completely alone with the baby scared her.
